


There Is A Light In The Dark (I Feel It's Warmth)

by harrythe



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrythe/pseuds/harrythe
Summary: Alex is eleven when his soulmate mark starts to fade.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 260





	There Is A Light In The Dark (I Feel It's Warmth)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beautifulsoulheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beautifulsoulheart/gifts).



> HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY RONIE!!
> 
> Yeah, I just wanted to write Alex/Willie for her birthday. One day, I may expand on this universe. We'll see.

Alex is eleven when his soulmate mark starts to fade. He knows what it means, knows that _Willie_ , wherever he is, is no longer with the land of the living. He traces the letters for hours, as they get fainter and fainter until he can barely see them, like the echoes of a scar that used to be there. 

He cries for hours, tracing the lines over and over. It had been one thing to be gay with conservative parents, and knowing he had a soulmate out there had made everything bearable. It was another thing entirely to be gay, and not have someone waiting for him for an eventuality. 

The boys comfort him as best they can, but Reggie and Luke don’t have soulmate marks, and Bobby’s is well hidden, and he won’t tell them about it. 

Alex scratches at the mark and wishes he didn’t have one either. His heart aches at the loss, and it refuses to heal, and eventually, he cries all the tears he can. 

He starts to move past the heartbreaking loss slowly, though the mark never completely fades as most do after the death of one half of the soulmate pair. Alex can’t even begin to wonder what it means. But as the years pass by, and Luke runs away from home, and Reggie’s parents fight more and more often, his soulmate mark fades into the background, until it’s just a dull ache.

The band continues to grow in popularity, and Alex eventually vents about all the feelings of loss to Luke, who turns them into heartbreaking songs. They never perform them, but Luke keeps them tucked away in a notebook, for when Alex is ready to face the reality that he’ll be spending forever apart from his soulmate. He’s thankful for Luke, in those moments, thankful to wrap himself just a little bit tighter around his best friend, and just be. Luke has always been a tactile person, showing affection in the arm he slings over Reggie’s shoulder, or the gentle punches he directs at Bobby, or the way he tangles his fingers with Alex’s when he’s feeling lost or alone. 

Those are the moments where Alex wonders if he can be happy without his soulmate. If maybe _Willie_ is just a ghost of happiness, and his band is the real thing. _Willie_ may have been his soul, but his boys are his heart, and he’d be just as lost without them. He’s willing to give them forever if he can.

Forever turns out to end a lot quicker than he, Luke, and Reggie anticipate, just as their band dreams seem to be coming to life.

* * *

He spends the next 25 years crying in a dark room, even though they’re not aware of how much time passes. 

It doesn’t escape his notice that at some point in that dark room, Luke gains a new marking. None of them mention it, not knowing what it means, only that the “Julie” scrawled across his wrist in elegant cursive is dark, vibrant, almost glowing. It gives them light in the darkness, something to hold onto.

He does not, however, notice that his mark is darkening again. 

* * *

When they pop into existence in their old studio and are met with a screaming girl, Alex is just grateful to be out of that dark room, even though he’s dead, and a ghost, something that normally would have bothered him to the point of distraction.

He’s more freaked out by the fact that he spent twenty-five years crying without comfort from his brothers. Normally, if he wasn’t so freaked out, he’d rib them about it until Reggie slung an arm around his shoulder, and Luke tangled their fingers together. 

It doesn’t even occur to him to look at his tattoo, even though it’s started itching as it grows darker than ever before. They’re not alive, but they exist, and for now, that’s enough. _Willie_ isn’t even a thought that crosses his mind.

_Julie,_ however, is everything he would have expected Luke’s soulmate to be. She’s smart, headstrong, and passionate. She’s bright, and vibrant like the first rays of the morning sun breaking over the horizon. He likes her, can tell she’ll be good for Luke, even as she’s yelling at them to leave.

Alex doesn’t even think she notices that the _Luke_ on her wrist grows darker by a degree or two the longer she’s around them. 

She doesn’t even react to Luke telling her his name, as if she long ago learned to ignore it. 

The more he thinks about though, if it faded when she was born, she probably assumed the same as he did growing up, that her soulmate was no longer living. He wonders a bit what it would be like to grow up with the knowledge, to know that the one you’re fated to no longer exists, will never exist to you, rather than like he did, where his mark just slowly faded out of existence one day. 

Then again, _Luke_ is barely legible, even for someone as adept at reading Luke’s handwriting as he is, so maybe she doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to say, and that’s why she doesn’t recognize it. Alex really should have had Luke practice his handwriting more. If they were ever going to be a successful band, they would have needed to at least be able to read the sheet music Luke gave them. 

Either way, it’s entertaining to watch the two of them orbit around each other like planets. 

And then she kicks them out of the studio, and it feels like his brain goes a bit haywire.

* * *

When he first runs into Willie, it doesn’t occur to him that this is who he’s spent his whole life looking for. All he notices is his hair flowing around him, flicked back in such a way that’s effortless, and cool. After that, it’s like he doesn’t even have time to stop and think because Willie just drags him from one adventure to another. 

His nose wrinkles in disgust though, when Willie calls him _Hotdog_ as if that’s a term of endearment rather than a morbid reminder of how he ended up in this state. 

It’s not until Reggie asks him what his new ghost friend's name is, that he even stops to think about it. 

But Willie is so far out of his league, so easy going and cool, that it’s just not even on Alex’s radar that Willie is _Willie_

The way he becomes completely enamored after Willie holds his hand to pull him into the museum should have been his first clue. 

The way his heart beat rapidly after Willie grabs his hand to show him how to pick up things should have been his second. 

And he really should have realized it when he’s willingly screaming in a museum, even if no one can hear them. 

It just never occurs to him that the fact that his wrist tingles in Willie’s presence means that he’s _Willie_. 

* * *

He doesn’t get a chance to figure it out, too busy dealing with Luke, and Julie, and a soulmate mark growing steadily darker, even as they seem to grow further apart until he begs Willie to take them to Caleb. 

Caleb sees right through him of course, his gaze zeroing in on the name _Willie_ easily. Alex squirms and resists the urge to cover the mark up.

“Well, well, well,” is all he says, eyebrows quirked in interest, as Alex stutters over trying to explain what’s going on between him and Willie before he realizes that’s not what Caleb’s talking about. He almost sighs in relief when the boys start talking about their band and _Julie_ , that it never occurs to them that maybe Caleb is a bad guy. Willie just tenses up, the longer they go talking to Caleb.

He doesn’t understand at first, until his eyes flick down to Willie’s wrist, and sees _Alex_ in his neat scrawl, and his heart stops. 

And it feels like his world tips slightly off its axis. 

He barely registers the fact that when Caleb marks them, his and Luke’s marks itch and burn, especially Luke’s, as if Caleb’s mark is a poison that the soulmate mark is trying to get rid of.

* * *

Of course, he can’t even bask in the knowledge that he has a soulmate, between the drama that is Julie and Luke, and whatever it was that Caleb did to them. 

No chance to worry over Willie’s strange behavior, or that Willie is _Willie_. 

Reggie and Julie grow closer, at least, like two long lost siblings reuniting in unfortunate circumstances. Reggie has always craved the security of a family, and Julie, and by extension Ray, provide him with that. The bond between them is one of the heart. _Luke_ may be her soul, but Reggie is her heart, and she protects her heart fiercely. 

And as close as Reggie and Julie get, Julie and Luke get even closer. Watching the two of them interact is like watching magic, like watching undeniable chemistry. A single soul split into two bodies. Something as cosmic and ancient as time itself. 

God, Willie is _Willie_. 

* * *

It breaks him just a little bit to hear the hurt in Willie’s voice, when he tells Alex that he cares about him. And it takes all that he has in him not to say that he cares too. That he’s always cared, from the minute he met him. That really should have been his first clue. But he can’t tell _Willie_ that he cares too, if Willie is just going to lose him in the end. 

Alex’s heart aches at the knowledge that they have to cross over, or they risk disappearing for good. Either way, he’ll be without _Willie_ , and it shouldn’t surprise him how unfair fate is being to him.

Someone on the other side must really have it out for him, to give him his soulmate, only to rip it away again.

When Willie finds him in the Orpheum, it takes all Alex has not to kiss him. He doesn’t want his first, and possibly only, kiss to be like this, where he’s dying a second death, as Willie looks on helplessly. 

And even though Willie promises to help them with whatever they need, it all just feels a little too much like the end when another jolt rips through him.

* * *

He tries not to dwell on how the hug outside the Orpheum feels final, or the fact that his mark is faintly glowing, and it itches like hell. 

There’s so many things he wants to tell _Willie_ , but suddenly the words won’t come. Alex has always known what to say, but for once he’s speechless. 

* * *

He silently apologizes to Willie when they get trapped at Caleb’s club, the one thing they’d tried to avoid. All of Willie’s sacrifices have been for naught, the things he’s risked for them, for him. His heart aches all over again. He hopes wherever Willie is, he can forgive them.

He also hopes Julie isn’t too mad at them for disappearing, and he doesn’t even notice as Luke’s mark seems to pulse the moment Caleb pulls them on stage. 

He wonders briefly if _Alex_ will fade on Willie’s wrist when they cross over or disappear like _Willie_ did when he was young, because they’re not staying here forever. They can’t. They’re going to figure out a way to bust out of here, even as he drums out a steady beat for Caleb.

Julie’s voice becomes a Siren’s call over the din of Caleb’s club, something for them to hold onto and bring them out of the darkness. He pops out first, and the relief and love in her eyes feels like coming home. Reggie pops in almost simultaneously, and the pseudo-sibling duo joyfully reunite. 

Luke takes a bit longer, but Julie’s mark fairly glows as _Luke_ flickers in and out, until he locks eyes with _Julie_ , and then it’s no time at all before he’s fully joining them on stage.

By the time they’re all on stage at the Orpheum he’s not able to feel anything other than relief at seeing _Julie_ again. _Willie_ gets shoved into a box to deal with later. 

* * *

Julie’s mark glows pretty permanently after Caleb’s mark disappears. None of them know what it means, exactly, but it’s enough for her and _Luke_ to stop dancing around each other. 

They’re inseparable and insufferable, but they’re all so happy that they can’t find it in themselves to care.

If they oozed chemistry before, it practically pours out of them now. They look so happy and in love that it hurts like looking into the sun. 

Alex aches for Willie, but he’s been lying low since Caleb seemingly disappeared. Alex doesn’t blame him. 

He just wants to know that he’s okay. 

* * *

When Willie finally does break away to find him, Alex just hugs him in relief. His mark pulses in time with what he assumes his heartbeat would be if he were alive, and he can feel Willie’s doing the same thing. 

“I care about you too,” Alex admits, tucking a piece of hair behind Willie’s ear. 

Willie is _Willie_ , and Alex has never felt so free. 

Willie presses a kiss to Alex’s cheek and his own mark throbs, and Willie’s starts to glow. Alex quirks an eyebrow at it and interlocks his and Willie’s fingers. The glow grows stronger, and Alex and Willie are dumbstruck to see the purple glow of Caleb’s mark rise up from Willie’s wrist, and dissipate. 

“Huh,” is all Alex can say. 

“Two marks can’t exist on the same person, and love has always been stronger,” Willie murmurs. 

“You’re free,” Alex breathes out, tightening his grip on _Willie’s_ fingers. 

“I’m free,” Willie answers, joyfully, turning so that he can face Alex. He quirks an eyebrow at him, and Alex nods. 

Their first kiss sends a jolt down their spine, and at first, Alex thinks of Caleb, and the return of his mark, but when he notices that their marks are glowing like Julie and Luke’s, he realizes what happened. 

It wasn’t Caleb’s mark at all. 

It was love. Passion. His soul answering _Willie’s_ call. 

He kissed Willie again and was pleasantly surprised at the jolt that echoes down his spine. 

This is what coming home felt like. 

And for once, since he was eleven and his soul mark was fading, he finally has a future with the said soulmate. 

Willie is _Willie_ , and they have forever. 

Alex is free. 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, I've got more JatP works coming since it's Phantom Appreciation Week next week.


End file.
